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ADDRESS 



OF 



Hon. DANIEL NEEDHAM, 



OF HARTFOKD, VT,, 

DELIVERED AT THE 

Wool Growers 1 Convention, 

AT RUTLAND, 

September 9th, 1862. 



PRINTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE CONVENTION, BY THE VERMONT 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



L. J. McINDOE, PRINTER, WINDSOR, VT. 



ADDRESS 



OF 



Hon. DANIEL NEEDHAM, 

OF HARTFORD, VT., 



DELIVERED AT THE 



Wool Growers' Convention, 

AT RUTLAND, 






September 9th, 1862. 



PRINTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE CONVENTION, BY THE VERMONT 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



L. J. McINDOE, PRINTER, WINDSOR, VT. 4 

/ g-k^- 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : 

At a meeting of the Board of Directors of our State Society, 
held at Bellows Falls in February last, it was voted, That the Sec- 
retary be requested to call a Wool Growers' Convention, to be held 
at Rutland, on the first day of our Annual Fair. In obedience to 
that vote, I have called a Convention, to be held at this place, and 
you, gentlemen, are here in response to that call. 

At the time that this vote was passed, I am not aware that any 
particular subject for discussion, in connection with the wool grow- 
ing interest, was contemplated. But it was fully understood, that 
the growing of Wool and the production of Sheep, were interests of 
great importance to our people, and that a free discussion of the 
various topics which a Convention might suggest, would not be 
without profit to our farming community. 

It is a matter of congratulation that the people of our country 
are able, not only to clothe themselves well, but with neatness and 
taste. And that we can not only afford to use all the wool pro- 
puced in the country, but are able to be consumers of large quanti- 
ties of imported wools, both in the raw and manufactured states. 

The value of wool imported into the United States in 1861, was 
nearly five millions of dollars ; while the value of imported manu- 
factured woolen goods, was more than twenty-eight millions 01 
dollars ; and this amount, enormous as it is, was nearly ten millions 
of dollars less than the importations of 1860. 

Taking the last three years as a basis of calculation, we have 
had an annual importation of from thirty-five to forty-five millions 
of pounds of manufactured and unmanufactured wool — being 



the product, at the least calculation, of thirteen million of sheep. 

The questions very naturally arise, Why not produce the most 
of this wool at home ? Why go abroad for one of our leading 
staples which, on an average, yields to the producer a larger profit 
than any other article which is the fruit of agricultural labor in 
this latitude ? 

That there can be no danger of producing too many sheep, that 
there need be the least fear of anything more than a temporary 
glutting of the wool market, figures easily demonstrate. 

The annual increase of population in the United States, requires 
the wool from more than three million of sheep. 

With an annual defficiency of wool of from forty to fifty million 
of pounds, we certainly need have no fears of glutting our domestic 
market. 

When we consider that there is no animal in which there is so 
little waste or loss ; no animal that will thrive by so little atten- 
tion and labor ; no animal so perfectly adapted to our mountain 
pastures — that both the necessaries and the luxuries of man are 
furnished by this little animal, whose skin and wool clothe and 
whose flesh feeds us ; we may well come to the conclusion, that the 
breeding of sheep, if properly attended to, is the most economical 
mode, experience has as yet taught us, of converting the vegetation 
of the farm to money. 

The number of sheep kept in the State of Vermont, according to 
the census of 1850, was a little more than one million, while the 
product of wool was three million four hundred thousand pounds, 
or a little more than three pounds to a head. There can be little 
doubt that the great care which has been taken by our farmers, 
within the last few years, to improve their breeds, has greatly in- 
creased the quantity of wool to a sheep, and if the census of 1860 
does not disclose a much larger number of sheep in the State, we 
have little doubt but it will increase the quantity of wool to three 
and a half if not four pounds to a sheep. 

The number of sheep in the United States in 1850, was twenty- 
one million seven" hundred and twenty-three thousand, producing 
an aggregate of fifty-two millions of pounds, at the rate of two and 
half pounds per head. 



The fact that in many sections of our own country sheep can be 
wintered almost as cheaply as they can be summered, while with 
us, in our more northern latitude, one dollar and twenty-five cents 
is the least expense of wintering a sheep, must satisfy us that we 
must either be good shepherds and improve our wool and increase 
its quantity, or give up competition with more southerly latitudes. 

There can be little doubt but that climate, locality and soil, have 
a most important influence in the value of wool — rendering some 
lands peculiarly adapted to the improvement and production of 
certain breeds. 

But much as these may have to do with the improvement of the 
sheep and the wool, I am inclined to the belief that the care and 
attention bestowed upon the flock may be of still greater value. 

Statistics clearly demonstrate, that it is only by constant care 
and attention that the breed of sheep has been sustained and im- 
proved in the older countries. The best flock of sheep, by careless- 
ness and neglect, will soon deteriorate to mediocrity and become to 
the owner a burden of expense, rather than a source of income. 

The first introduction of Merino sheep into Russia, was made in 
1 803, when one hundred Merino rams, of the best quality, were 
taken from Spain, at an expense of two hundred dollars each. The 
exportation of Merino wool from that empire, in 1830, amounted 
to one million four hundred thousand pounds ; and in the course of 
fourteen years, increased to more than thirty million pounds. But 
the great desire of the Russian farmers to increase their number of 
sheep, rather than the quality of their wool, has led to a large 
falling off in the amount and value of the Russian Merino. This 
wool, like many other kinds of imported wool, has lost its reputa- 
tion, through the negligence of the producer in its preparation, or 
in his overweening desire to get rich from his flocks. 

To the sheep producer, next to the important matter of care of 
the flock, is the exercise of good judgment in crossing. This re- 
quires unremitting and constant attention ; for experience has 
taught us, here as elsewhere, that even the most valuable breeds 
lose a portion of their good qualities, if the necessary crossing are 
not seasonably undertaken. 



6 

In Silecia and Moravia these precautions have long been observ- 
ed ; precautions which to an ordinary observer, would appear trivi- 
al and useless. Among the most important features of this care, 
may be noticed the separation of flocks into families, and the 
weighing and registering of the fleeces from generation to genera- 
tion, and the moment deterioration is detected, the occasion is 
studied and a change made. This, in those countries, is not con- 
fined to small flocks, but extends to flocks of ten and twenty thou- 
sand head. 

In our own country we are beginning to be particular ; in Ver- 
mont we have flocks of sheep which are as closely watched as any 
of the Silecian or Moravian flocks. 

Not long since I made a visit to Mr. Rybald, in Delaware City, 
in the State of Delaware, and, after looking over his magnificent 
South-downs, which in small flocks of fifteen and twenty, were de- 
pastured in separate folds under the constant vigilance of a shep- 
herd, I was interested to find oil paintings of his leading bucks 
hung up in the halls and rooms of his elegant house. Each buck 
had his name, and the picture was true to the life. By having the 
picture of the sire preserved, he could compare it from generation 
to generation with the progeny ; so that the picture had its use far 
above that of a mere fancy sketch. 

One of the most difficult questions in political economy, is to de- 
termine to what extent aid and protection shall be furnished by the 
Government to the producer and manufacturer. Between the 
wool grower and the manufacturer there has always been a conten- 
tion with regard to this great question. The manufacturer claim- 
ing that upon the raw material there should be only a light duty, 
sufficient to pay the expenses of the Government ; while the pro- 
ducer claims that it should be sufficiently large to amount to pro- 
tection and encouragement. 

In 1861 the average price of foreign wool was eleven and one- 
third cents a pound. Could it be supposed for a moment that we 
could compete with such a price as this? South America, of the 
entire importations of last year, furnished five millions of pounds, 
and of this the larger part came from Buenos Ayres. In Buneos 
Ayres the laud is not fenced. There is scarcely any value attached 




to it. They have no winters there. No hay crop to harvest 
against the storms and colds, the frozen ground and the deep cov- 
ering of snow of our temperate zone. A single shepherd takes 
care of three thousand sheep, and there is little expense in the pro- 
duction of the wool beyond that of shearing. 

Here then, is this wool, produced on the immense plains of South 
America, with no labor attending its production, coming directly 
into competition with the wool produced by the hard labor and 
constant vigilance of the farmers of our country. And shall not 
the Government protect the interests of its own subjects, when such 
a fearful competition is assailing them ? 

That we can produce every variety of wool, from the very finest 
grades, there can be no doubt. America can and should make her- 
self independent of the world. It is a well known fact, that a man- 
ufacturer in Maine, manufactured from Silecian wool produced 
in that State, a piece of cloth which, for fineness and quality, took 
the first prize at the World's Fair in London. 

The old argument that in the protection of the manufacturer, you 
build up a consuming class for the agricultural products of the 
country, and that the additional market thereby furnished for the 
producer, compensates him for allowing foreign competition, has 
long since exploded. All our interests go hand in hand. Deal a blow 
at one, and in the end it will reach them all. We want, in order to 
have a perfectly prosperous country, such as I hope it is our desti- 
ny yet to become, that there shall be such a diversity in the pur- 
suits of the people, that each may consume the products of the 
other. 

To satisfy this demand of the manufacturer, only a few years 
since, we negociated a reciprocity treaty with the Canadas, which 
enabled New England to import all her bread and meat from the 
British Provincies duty free — giving to the Canadian farmer all the 
markets of the United States, to the exclusion of our own farmers, 
who have paid more for their land and who pay more than double 
for their labor. 

The duties on products imported, under this treaty, will reach 
more than thirty millions a year since its adoption — and what have 
we in return ? why, the privilege of sending beef, wheat and pota- 



toes to Canada. And this is all ! And this year, and last, and 
the year before that, our humane Government has thrown into the 
pockets of Victoria's subjects, in the British Provinces, thirty mil- 
lion of dollars per year.: all of which, I am justified in saying, has 
been wrung from the sweat and labor of the yeomanry of our 
country. 

The protection of manufactured woolens to a greater ex- 
tent than you protect the production of the raw material, would 
result in the same way. 

We want equal protection to all the great interests of the coun- 
try, and it is due to the farmers of the great West, as well as our 
own, that this reciprocity treaty, which enables the farmer in the 
British Provinces to get the products of his labor to a United 
•States market, at a less cost than the expense of transportation 
from Chicago, should be repealed. 

The uniform policy of the country has been to make the duties 
a little lower upon imported wool than upon manufactured woolens. 
We only ask for ourselves that which we cheerfully accord to 
others. The manufacturer and producer must stand side by side ; 
for what protects the one, equally interests the other. If the 
farmer gets a generously remunerative price for his wool, he is a 
freer buyer of the manufacturer — dressing himself and his family in 
better clothes, and buying more of them ; — but pinch him down to 
tfhe mere cost of production, and you drive him from the market as 
a buyer of anything but mere necessaries, and he will be hardly 
able to buy them. Who then will buy the goods of the manufactur- 
er ? Why, the wheels of the great mill would stop, and there 
would be no market, and the thrift of Lowell and Nashua, and all 
our large manufacturing villages, which have grown directly and 
immediately from our farmers, would depart like the morning dew. 
I have only alluded to this subject for the purpose of showing our 
reciprocal duties and obligations. 

There is, undeniably, connected with the soil of our mountain 
pastures, that peculiarity which enables us to breed better sheep, 
with the same care, than any other State in the Union. And I 
am free to say, that while the sheep of Illinois, and Texas, and 
California, deteriorate in quality, from year to year, and the sheep 



raisers of those States are obliged to come to Vermont for bucks to 
improve their flocks, our sheep, with comparatively little care, are 
constantly growing better. And, if the time should ever come 
when we shall fail to compete with the States of the West and 
South West in the production of wool, the time is far in the future 
when any of those States can compete with us in the production of 
breeding sheep. 

The present condition of the country makes the prospect of the 
wool market, for two or three years to come, very encouraging 
The loss of the great Southern staple must be supplied by wool. 
And the amount of cotton to be produced for the next three years, 
even should the rebellion be subdued and we in the meantime again 
become a happy family of States, which may God in his mercy 
grant, will be much short of the needed supply. There was no sur- 
plus of wool last year, and on the first of January, 1862, there 
were less than ten thousand bales in the New York market. 

The clip of wool for 1862 has already passed into the hands of 
the manufacturers:; so there can be no fears of raising wool for two 
years to come. 

A very difficult question to decide and one which is beginning 
to meet a good degree of discussion, is the manner in which the 
wool should be prepared for the market. The California wool is 
sent to the New York market as is most of the Texas wool in an 
.unwashed condition. Our imported wools from South America 
.and Russia and Australia, come in the same form. 

Then too, there is the question of health to the sheep. There 
can be little doubt but that sheep from colds taken by washing 
often sicken and die. This is a serious matter. Could we reach 
some plan, by which there could be a uniformity of action on the 
part of producers— and could we make manufacturers believe that 
it was for their true interest to buy and pay for wool in accordance 
with its real value, we should have attained a goal greatly to be 
desired by all honest men. 

The wool buyer goes into a neighborhood and buys all the wool 
at the same price, while the wool of one man, on account of the 
sheep having been thoroughly washed, is worth ten cents a pound 



10 

more than that of another who washed the wool on the back of the 
sheep, but allowed all the dirt to lodge in the belly. 

Very little if any discrimination is made by the buyer ; and the 
conscientious man — and it is fair to presume he is in the majority, 
suffers, from the fact that the dirty wool of the dishonest man must 
be bought by the manufacturer at a living price and he must sell 
his for the same. 

Why cannot the manufacturer see his true interest in encoura- 
ging integrity on the part of the farmer ! Why can he not see 
that so long as he pays the conscientious wool grower no more for 
his wool than the miserable knave who with three pounds of wool 
sells three pounds of dirt, he encourages a fraud which in the end 
injures himself more than any one else. 

I know there is the argument that if you do not wash, some pro- 
ducers will leave twice the amount of dirt on their fleeces that oth- 
ers do. There is a chance for fraud here as elsewhere. And I 
can see no way to obviate all these opportunities and inducements 
for fraud, except for the manufacturer to pay in exact proportion 
to the value of the purchased wool. 

The wonderful improvement in the breed of sheep in our own 
country, is worthy of remark. Twenty years ago, and five and six 
pound fleeces were of rare production. In the whole State of Ver- 
mont there was not a buck in 1840 that would shear twelve pounds 
of wool ; — and now, there are many breeders in the State who 
will show you this years' clips from bucks, which weigh from twen- 
ty to twenty-five pounds. And, I am bold to say, this great 
weight is neither all dirt or all oil ; but to at least fifty per cent, 
clear, genuine wool. 

The wool grower who still clings to his native stock, when such 
bucks are in the market all around him, is among the men who 
still believe in the wrought iron plough and the little miserable 
cattle that our early English ancestry in their poverty and necesi- 
ties, transmitted to their New England posterity. 

With the farmer as well as the artisan and the mechanic, the 
last twenty years have been twenty years of change and improve- 
ment. Experience has lent to enterprise a helping hand, and hav- 
ing given full and fair opportunities to French merino, Silesian, 



11 

Saxony and Spanish merino sheep, public opinion, with almost uni- 
versal consent, has awarded to the latter class, the meed of merit 
as profitable fine wool sheep. And when to-day you interrogate 
the sheep breeder, whether interested or not, in the other varieties, 
which is the most profitable sheep to breed from, he will, with, 
frankness tell you, the Spanish merino. 

The Spanish merino has been fully tested ; and it has been 
found to possess those peculiarities which render it "pre-eminently 
adapted to our soil and climate. 

The average cost of keeping sheep in the several States is a 
matter of much consequence to us, and suggests the importance of 
keeping up our best breeds with constant improvement or a fair 
prospect of meeting a competition from other States, which will be 
ruinous to the production of Vermont wool. 

In Illinois, the cost of keeping is sixty cents ; in Iowa, seventy- 
five cents ; in Michigan, eighty-three cents ; in Virginia, sixty 
cents ; in New Jersey, sixty cents ; in Maine, one dollar ; in 
Pennsylvania, fifty cents ; in California, seventy-five, and in Ver- 
mont, one dollar and thirty. The average increase of sheep in 
Vermont is also less than that of the other States I have mention- 
ed. The increase of Ohio being eighty per cent ; Georgia, ninety- 
nine; New Jersey, eighty; Maine, ninety, and Vermont but sev- 
enty. 

Still we lead the nation in the production of stock sheep, — and 
this is our forte, — and may we so guard and protect it, that we 
may never lose our superiority in this respect. 

It has been well said, that before any one commences the rear- 
ing of a breed of sheep, he must make up his mind what shape and 
quality he wishes to obtain ; and that afterward, he must steadily 
pursue that object ! If he pursues this course, there is little doubt 
in his obtaining the point he seeks ; but the large experience which 
sheep raisers have had, may save the novice many a wild and ex- 
pensive experiment. 

Should you ask a sheep breeder of experience in Vermont, why 
western and south-western flocks so rapidly deteriorated ; why the 
sheep raiser in Illinois and Texas and California a few years after 
having procured the best stock from Vermont, was obliged to re- 



12 

turn and buy anew, to keep his flock from entire ruin, he would 
reply, that it was because the western and south-western breeders 
were so careless and inattentive to their crossings, — that they mix- 
ed Silesian and French merino and Spanish merino together, — and 
in this way lost the strong family likeness of the Spanish merino, 
with its most valuable qualities ; and that therefore, they were 
obliged to return to Vermont every few years, and buy again of 
the careful breeder in the Green Mountain State. 

Should you ask the Vermont breeder, whose bucks are sold off 
every year readily, and to a quick market for from two to five 
hundred dollars each, and whose ewes would average from twenty- 
five to fifty dollars at a ready sale, why his sheep were constantly 
improving, he would reply, because he was so careful to preserve 
the blood, keeping it from taint from year to year, and studying 
with care the formation of limb as well as the texture of wool. 

The answer may be in neither of these. It may be in both. 
For my own part, I think the carelessness of the Western farmers 
has much to do with the depreciation ; but the soil the climate, 
the exposure has also much. While to the care and attention of 
the Vermont farmer I would give great credit, yet to our sweet 
mountain pastures, to our excellent quality of well cured hay, to 
our warm and well ventilated barns, I would also attribute much. 

I cannot feel that I have touched lightly, even, upon the many 
important questions worthy of the consideration of a Wool Grow- 
ers' Convention, without alluding for a moment to the importance 
of such a meeting as this. 

The depressing influences which immediately succeeded the 
breaking out of the Southern rebellion, affected the wool grower to 
as great an extent, as any other class of men. And amid the gen- 
eral distress and alarm, the anxiety of our farmers to dispose of 
their clips in the summer of 1861, caused them to make a sacrifice 
of from ten to thirty per cent, below the cost of production. 

Could we have had a Wool Growers' Convention previous to 
that sale, or could we have given to the public, over the signature 
of some careful statistician, the condition of the wool market at 
that time, every farmer could have judged for himself the chances 
of a sale, and the result would have been, that the State of Ver- 



13 

mont would have realized at least a hundred thousand dollars,— 
which through the influence of the wool panic, passed from the 
pockets of the farmers into the hands of speculators. 

Wool Growers' Associations have been established in several of 
the States, and in the State of California with very great success. 
According to the Report of the Wool Growers' Association of that 
State, there was saved in California last year, more than five hun- 
dred thousand dollars through its instrumentality in diffusing in- 
formation, and enabling the California wool growers to reach a 
ready market. 

That an Association of this kind connected or disconnected with 
our State Agricultural Society, if properly managed, would be pro- 
ductive of great good, I have no doubt. It would furnish a medi- 
um through which all our farmers could be reached, and by mak- 
ing the subject of wool a specialty, would elicit by discussion and 
thought, valuable information which the more tardy means of 
reaching would place at a far distant day. 

I have in these hastily prepared remarks, given you a brief word 
upon a few of the many great subjects connected with our interests. 
There are many subjects of equal importance, to which I have not 
even alluded. A Convention like this, if conducted in the right 
manner, is the proper place to draw from the men of large and long 
experience, the information so greatly desired by us all. And I 
doubt not, in the course of a few years, the influences growing out 
of such meetings as this was designed to be, would do much to- 
ward bringing our sheep to that high standard which men who 
have made a life study of this little animal, know its capacity to 
reach. 

I know that there is a feeling which is inclined to regard this 
meeting, as well as the meeting of our State Agricultural Society, 
as out of place at this time ; that there are those who would divert 
our minds entirely from the pursuits of peace and absorb them in 
those of war. 

I can see as clearly as any one the dark cloud that hangs over 
the nation; I can hear its distant charges of electric power that 
bear down the strong arm and intelligent brow to smite the dust ; 



14 

to an extent, I can see its appalling magnitude, threatening to 
sweep not only a nation from existence, but the great light of 
civilization from the world. I can feel the trembling earth be- 
neath me, as the dark wave of cloud after cloud gathers to increase 
the intensity of the storm, and need only intuition to teach me, 
that each successive wave is designed to sweep a civilized nation 
back to barbarism and a freedom-loving world to hopeless slavery. 
But to us, who do not go to engage in the deadly conflict, is left 
the high and important mission of clothing and feeding those who 
do. And I know of no way in which we can serve our country 
better unless she call us to the field, than by studying the means 
of enriching and improving it. For wealth and civilization are 
twin sisters, whose united influence as the result of intelligent in- 
dustry, has made the nation of the Stars and Stripes a city set 
upon a hill, giving light and comfort to the down-trodden and op- 
pressed of all lands. 

And I rejoice to-day, that although we have sent to the battle- 
field twelve hundred thousand intelligent and noble men whose 
names shall form in history a galaxy great as fame can write it, 
to fight the great battle of liberty, we have still left those to carry 
on these great works of peace, — and should thrice twelve himdred 
thousand more follow in their steps, to aid in this great contest, 
I hope there will be old and decrepid men enough still left to carry 
on these great institutions which have done so much toward im- 
proving and enriching our country ; and if the time should come, 
when the men shall become exhausted, may the women and children 
join hands in keeping in motion this machinery of civilization, 
which their husbands, fathers, and lovers have established. 



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